Carer +

Today, it is possible for almost everyone to receive the care they need at home, even if they suffer from multiple chronic illnesses. Yet, that frail older people still move to assisted living facilities or nursing homes. For many, that transition is driven by a lack of qualified caregivers, an absence of basic services such as transportation, appropriate housing and loneliness. Recent research has shown that a large segment of the growing number of older people in Europe can be encouraged to use online services, and that modern Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) technologies can radically improve their quality of life by supporting ageing well in the community and at home.

Anticipating a new and vital role for carers (as a carer+) the « missing link » between the digital tools and older people

eWall

The daily life of COPD and MCI people is difficult. A group of 100 researchers from 13 countries knows that very well. Being involved in an 8M€ EC-funded project over a period of 3 years, we are working hard to deliver a solution that could change the life of people with COPD and MCI. Following a thorough evaluation study we are optimizing eWALL, to meet very hard user needs; among them to be easy, unobtrusive and of course effective. eWALL is in its final optimization to become a product that will improve the life of more than 50 users during its test phase. eWALL is a product designed specifically for people with COPD and MCI that brings back a normal and safe life at home. It is simple to use and very effective.

iStoppFalls

The aim of iStoppFalls is to develop and implement ICT based technologies which can be easily integrated in daily life practices of older people living at home, and which allow for exercise training and fall risk assessment based on discrete measuring technologies and adaptive assistance functions.The Senior Mobility Monitor (SMM) will continuously monitor mobility in daily life and will provide quantitative information on frequency, duration and type of mobility activities and qualitative information on balance function and muscle power.

The Knowledge Based System for fall prediction & prevention correlates these two sources of mobility information (SMM & Exergame), and in turn provides sufficient data to perform a trend analysis of these entities. iStoppFalls will be based on user-centred design approaches, and thus provides advanced Human Computer Interaction (HCI) adjusted to the capabilities of our older adult users (usability & accessibility).

UNCAP

Increasingly fast aging population is set to challenge health and care systems. Current care models are proving to be inappropriate and unsustainable. This situation is clearly calling for new care & assistance paradigms.

UNCAP will address such a fast-evolving scenario through the development of an open, scalable and privacysavvy ICT infrastructure designed to help aging people (including those with mild cognitive impairments) live independently and with dignity.

In particular, UNCAP will leverage on an interoperable ecosystem of biosensors and indoor & outdoor localisation solutions to deliver an infrastructure capable to continuously monitor and assist users in a noninvasive way. Furthermore, UNCAP will allow accurate monitoring of user’s state (physical & cognitive), and

also creating a range of brand new services designed to stimulate healthier lifestyle and more active aging process. To this extent, the ultimate goal of UNCAP is to extend the duration of high-quality life of aging, frail, and cognitive impaired citizens by helping them achieve higher autonomy, independence, and dignity.

ehcoBUTLER

Project ehcoBUTLER: an open digital platform for apps that help older people to live actively and healthily

For many people ageing comes with physical or mild cognitive impairments. The main objective of the project is to demonstrate the socio-economic benefits from the deployment of an ICT social and e-health technological platform that enables older people to simply integrate their leisure and care apps. The project aims to assist seniors with cognitive impairment and promote health, satisfaction and personal wellbeing with different intervention levels. Another ehcoBUTLER project aim is to assist people to stay active, healthy and independent, and keep up a good quality of life. The ehcoBUTLER platform also helps family, caregivers and social care systems to share information on the activities, conditions and moods of those they care about. Finally it also provides a trusted ecosystem for apps providers.

The ehcoBUTLER platform hosts social and health apps that regard older people's daily living activities and promote healthy behaviours. It helps to optimize their physical, social and mental health through leisure activities, clinical guidelines and a disease-oriented agenda. Thereby it counters the most common reasons for nursing home or residence-admittance: isolation, cognitive and physical inactivity and sedentary behaviours

ehcoBUTLER will demonstrate the socio-economic benefits from ICT pilot projects with real users, including how the platform can help translate promising results into scalable practice across Europe. To that end the ehcoBUTLERplatform will be tested in 7 countries on 8 pilot sites, with different business cases, assessing their returns of investment as well as social returns on investment, including profitability, health care cost reduction and increased independence and quality of life. Countries involved are Italy, France, Serbia, Israel, Greece, Spain and the Netherlands.

HASIC - Healthy Ageing Supported by Internet and Community

The general objective of the HASIC project is to empower older people (65+) in Europe to adopt healthy lifestyles which include a healthy diet, physical activity, moderate alcohol consumption and social participation. Together with supporting older people on an individual level, HASIC aims to develop the quality and cost-effective-ness of services for older people by promoting cooperation between regional service providers and by producing policy recommendations on communal elderly services.

While the aims of preventative health care and active ageing are widely recognized, there is still a lack of knowledge and skills how to efficiently prevent health problems and exclusion of older people considering the wholeness of a person. HASIC answers to this challenge by developing tools for supporting healthy lifestyles and active citizenship of older people.

It is proven that supporting empowerment and self-management helps people to learn to control the risks of their health and to maintain their healthy lifestyles. In addition, right knowledge and support of a peer group help older people to maintain healthy life and to prevent exclusion. In the HASIC project the empowerment and self-management of older people are supported by developing and piloting peer group activities and mentoring and an online platform, which are planned especially according to the needs of this age group.

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission.
This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.